Art and Architecture > Architecture > Historic Preservation

An international point of reference for the critical examination of historic preservation.
Future Anterior approaches historic preservation from a position of critical inquiry, rigorous scholarship, and theoretical analysis. The journal is an important international forum for the critical examination of historic preservation, spurring challenges of its assumptions, goals, methods, and results. As the first and only journal in American academia devoted to the study and advancement of historic preservation, it provides a much-need bridge between architecture and history. The journal also features provocative theoretical reflections on historic preservation from the point of view of art, philosophy, law, geography, archeaology, planning, materials science, cultural anthropology, and conservation. Future Anterior is essential reading for anyone interested in historic preservation and its role in current cultural debates.

This richly illustrated book tracks the evolution of Fredericksburg architecture and guides readers through the streets of this once-westernmost German settlement in America, pointing out the log, fachwerk, and stone buildings that housed the town’s full-time residents, its weekenders, and the businesses of the nineteenth century.

Abundant with details uncovered by Hafertepe in his research, including corrections to construction dates based on newly tapped records, this guide features those buildings visible to visitors from the public streets and sidewalks. The author lists which buildings are open for tours and which ones have been converted to public use such as museums, stores, or restaurants.

The buildings of Fredericksburg reflect memories of classic German construction and technique with a gradual transition to American styles, including a few remarkable decades that were neither purely German nor American distinctively but saw the creation of a regional style.

This book allows readers to walk down the streets of Fredericksburg and see the layers of Texas history on display: everything from a pioneer log cabin to an art deco courthouse.

Over the last half century, historic preservation has been on the rise in American cities and towns, from urban renewal and gentrification projects to painstaking restoration of Victorian homes and architectural landmarks. In this book, Nancy R. Hiller brings together individuals with distinctive styles and perspectives, to talk about their passion for preservation. They consider the meaning of place and what motivates those who work to save and care for places; the role of place in the formation of identity; the roles of individuals and organizations in preserving homes, neighborhoods, and towns; and the spiritual as well as economic benefits of preservation. Richly illustrated, Historic Preservation in Indiana is an essential book for everyone who cares about preserving the past for future generations.

Built by Spanish Franciscan missionaries in the seventeenth century, the magnificent mission church at Acoma Pueblo in west-central New Mexico is the oldest and largest intact adobe structure in North America. But in the 1920s, in danger of becoming a ruin, the building was restored in a cooperative effort among Acoma Pueblo, which owned the structure, and other interested parties. Kate Wingert-Playdon’s narrative of the restoration and the process behind it is the only detailed account of this milestone example of historic preservation, in which New Mexico’s most famous architect, John Gaw Meem, played a major role.

In the popular imagination, the controversial 1963 demolition of Pennsylvania Station gave birth to New York City’s historic preservation movement. As Randall Mason reveals, however, historic preservation has been a persistent force in the development of New York since the 1890s, when the city’s leading politicians, planners, and architects first recognized the need to preserve the rapidly evolving city’s past. Rich with archival research, The Once and Future New York documents the emergence of historic preservation in New York at the turn of the twentieth century. Between 1890 and 1920, preservationists saved and restored buildings, parks, and monuments throughout the city’s five boroughs that represented continuity with the past. Mason argues these efforts created a “memory infrastructure” that established a framework for New York’s collective memory and fused celebrations of the city’s past with optimism about its future. Focusing on three major projects—the restoration of City Hall Park, the ultimately failed attempt to save historic St. John’s Chapel, and the construction of the Bronx River Parkway— Mason challenges several myths about historic preservation. Against the charge that preservationists were antiquarians concerned only with architecturally significant buildings, Mason instead asserts that many were social reformers interested in recovering the city’s collective history. Even more important, he demonstrates that historic preservation in this period, rather than being fundamentally opposed to growth, was integral to modern urban development.

From large cities to rural communities, gay men have long been impassioned pioneers as keepers of culture: rescuing and restoring decrepit buildings, revitalizing blighted neighborhoods, saving artifacts and documents of historical significance. A Passion to Preserve explores this authentic and complex dimension of gay men’s lives by profiling early and contemporary preservationists from throughout the United States, highlighting contributions to the larger culture that gays are exceptionally inclined to make.

Over the past twenty years, there has been a fundamental shift in the institutional organization of historic preservation education. Historic preservation is the most recent arrival in the collection of built environment disciplines and therefore lacks the pedagogical depth and breadth found in allied endeavors such as architecture and planning. As the first degree programs in preservation only date to the 1970s and the first doctoral programs to the 1990s, new faculty are confronted with pedagogical challenges that are unique to this relatively nascent field. Based on a conference that included educators from around the world, Barry L. Stiefel and Jeremy C. Wells now present a collection that seeks to address fundamental issues of preservation pedagogy, outcome-based education and assessment, and global issues of authenticity and significance in historic preservation. The editors argue that the subject of the analysis has shifted from, “What is the best way to fix a historic building?” to, “What are the best ways for teaching people how to preserve historic properties (and why) according to the various standards that have been established?”

This important reconsideration of the state of the field in historic preservation education will appeal to a broad audience across numerous disciplines.

Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, articulated a vision of a community that embraced sacrifice over the needs of the individual; the result was one of the most successful utopian experiments of nineteenth-century America. The Shakers, an idealistic offshoot of the ascetic Quaker religion, grew to as many as six thousand members in nineteen communities reaching from New England to the Midwest. Lee’s experiment, focused mainly on simplicity, celibate communal living, and sexual equality, provided a model of prosperity for more than one hundred years. Founded in 1806, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, was a thriving community located in the center of the bluegrass region. After the Civil War, a steadily shrinking membership resulted in the gradual decline of this remarkable community, and the last remaining Shaker to reside at Pleasant Hill died in 1923. In the years immediately following, it appeared as though the village would fall prey to neglect and a lack of historic preservation. In 1961, however, local citizens formed a private not-for-profit organization to preserve and restore the village and to interpret the rich heritage of the Pleasant Hill Shakers for future generations. Over several years, and against incredible odds, this group succeeded in raising the funds necessary for the restoration projects. By 1968, eight buildings at Shakertown, carefully adapted for modern use while retaining their historical and architectural significance, had been opened to the public. Thomas Parrish’s Restoring Shakertown masterfully explains how the Shaker settlement was saved from the ravages of time and transformed into a nationally renowned landmark of historic preservation. In chronicling how the hopes of the early fund-raisers quickly were challenged by the harsh reality of economic hardships, the book serves as a valuable study in modern philanthropy. Parrish also details the village’s negotiation of legal challenges and how its final plans for creating awareness of the Shakers’ legacy set the standard for later museum developments around the country. In addition to recounting the remarkable history of the formation and eventual demise of the “Shaking Quakers,” Parrish presents a dramatic chronicle of the village’s evolving fortunes. From describing the challenges of financing the restoration to finding preservation experts to achieve the highest standards of authenticity, Restoring Shakertown reveals the complexities and rewards of the preservation of one of Kentucky’s most significant historical and architectural sites.

Early settlers of Jefferson County, New York, found limestone and sandstone in easy abundance in riverbeds and outcroppings, and by 1855, built about 500 stone buildings.
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Stone Houses of Jefferson County, New York, local historians show their pride in these stone dwellings as they explore both the beauty and permanence of the stonework and the courage and ambition of the first owners. We learn how skilled masons worked the local stone and how double-faced stone walls were a protection against both fire and the region’s harsh winters.
Most settlers came from New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, but an influential group was from France. Many fought in the Revolutionary War or in the War of 1812 and built on cheap land in this newly opened territory that was a buffer against the British in Canada.
Their houses range from humble vernacular cottages to elegant mansions in the Federal and Greek Revival styles. Public buildings include hotels and taverns, churches and mills, a military barracks and hospital, a smithy and a jail.
Color and period photographs of 85 buildings document the origins and evolution of this community through the largely unrecognized value of its concentration of stone architecture.
Information on construction and preservation, including mortar recipes, are included to help current owners

From Palo Duro Canyon in the Panhandle to Lake Corpus Christi on the coast, from Balmorhea in far West Texas to Caddo Lake near the Louisiana border, the state parks of Texas are home not only to breathtaking natural beauty, but also to historic buildings and other structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930s.

In Texas State Parks and the CCC: The Legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Cynthia Brandimarte has mined the organization’s archives, as well as those of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the Texas Department of Transportation, to compile a rich visual record of how this New Deal program left an indelible stamp on many of the parks we still enjoy today.

Some fifty thousand men were enrolled in the CCC in Texas. Between 1933 and 1942, they constructed trails, cabins, concession buildings, bathhouses, dance pavilions, a hotel, and a motor court. Before they arrived, the state’s parklands consisted of fourteen parks on about 800 acres, but by the end of World War II, CCC workers had helped create a system of forty-eight parks on almost 60,000 acres throughout Texas.Accompanied by many never-published images that reveal all aspects of the CCC in Texas, from architectural plans to camp life, Texas State Parks and the CCC covers the formation and development of the CCC and its design philosophy; the building of the parks and the daily experiences of the workers; the completion and management of the parks in the first decades after the war; and the ongoing process of maintaining and preserving the iconic structures that define the rustic, handcrafted look of the CCC.

With a call for greater appreciation of these historical resources, especially in light of the recent Bastrop fire, which threatened one of the state’s most popular CCC-era destinations, Brandimarte profiles twenty-nine parks, providing a descriptive history of each and information on its CCC company, the dates of CCC activity, and the CCC-built structures still existing within the park.

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